Validation stickers are used as proof of registration of automobiles and other motor vehicles (e.g. trucks, snowmobiles, etc.) These retroreflective stickers generally have a printable plastic top surface and a pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) on the bottom with a protective liner that is removed before it is adhered to the ultimate surface such as an automobile license plate. Such stickers usually have printed variable information. The end user (e.g. vehicle owner) typically also gets a card with his/her name, address, amount paid, etc., at the time the fees are paid to the issuing agency. Issuing agencies prefer to print these stickers and cards at the same time and on demand as needed. In order to do so, it is common to pre-attach stickers with the liners to cards via an additional layer of adhesive between the liner and the card surface prior to the printing operation. Problems twith this approach were addressed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,406,787, such patent relating to a form sheet having a digital printable surface portion and a release surface portion, on which release coating surface portion a signage with a pressure-sensitive adhesive can be releasable adhered.
In contrast to validation stickers wherein the opposing surface of the sticker is bonded to a target surface, i.e. license plate, other types of vehicle registration stickers such as parking permits and park passes employ face adhering verification (“FAV”) wherein the viewing surface of the sticker rather than the opposing surface comprises a pressure sensitive adhesive covered with a release liner. During use the release liner is removed and the sticker adhered to, for example, the interior of a windshield, the sticker intended to be viewed from the outside.
An exemplary decal assembly and method of making a FAV sticker is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,788,796 (Look et al). As described in the abstract of U.S. Pat. No. 5,788,796, the decal assembly comprises a backing web, a printed label (e.g. sticker) positioned on the backing web, an adhesive web applied over the label and the backing web, and a releasable liner web carrying the adhesive web and applied over the label and the backing web. The label and the adhesive web over the label define the actual decal. In a preferred embodiment the label is made from retroreflective sheeting. Labels printed with fixed information are provided on a master roll. The endmost label is printed with variable information, separated from the master roll, and then assembled into the decal assembly. For use, the releasable web is peeled back to reveal the adhesive web, the label, and the backing web. The decal (i.e. the label and the adhesive web covering the label) can then be separated from the surrounding adhesive web and the backing web and applied to a surface.
The form construction depicted in FIGS. 1 and 2 has been commercially available from 3M Company (3M), St. Paul, Minn. This form construction was manufactured by providing an 11 inch (28 cm) wide roll of paper and a 3.5 inch (8.9 cm) wide roll of retroreflective sheeting, removing the release liner from the non-viewing surface of the sheeting to expose the underlying pressure sensitive adhesive, contacting the adhesive to the paper near an edge of the roll of paper, contacting the adhesive coated surface of a 3.5 inch (8.9 cm) wide roll of transfer tape having window-like openings spaced apart 8.5 inches (22 cm) on center to the viewing surface of the sheeting, die cutting from the backside a 0.5 inch (1.3 cm) frame around the perimeter of each such window-like opening forming a sticker, and cutting the roll into sheets such that each sticker is positioned approximately in the center of each sheet as depicted in FIGS. 1 and 2. The paper form and the exposed center portion of the sticker are digitally printed by an issuing agency. The end user removes the sticker 80 from the paper 60. In doing so, the release liner 70 of the transfer tape remains attached to the form exposing the adhesive on the viewing surface beneath the release liner. The end user then contacts the exposed adhesive to the inside of a motor vehicle windshield.
It has been discovered that when the retroreflective sheeting extends to the peripheral parallel edges of a paper form construction, the paper tends to curl once the roll has been cut into an individual sheet, as depicted in FIG. 2. The curled sheets tend to jam and/or miss-print when printed by the issuing agency. Additional problems occur with this construction during folding and packaging as the extra thickness of the sheeting at the edges of the form sheet often cause the equipment to stop since the equipment sensors mistakenly detect multiple sheets being processed.
Accordingly, industry would find advantage in improved form constructions comprising stickers and improved methods of making such form construction.